Life Is Beautiful Without The Tinted Glasses

On my previous blog, I wrote an awful lot about religion because it’s something I feel very strongly about. I’m trying to avoid that here because it’s nothing new — it’s always been a rehash of the same ideas over and over again. But alas, there’s only so long I can go without making reference to it, so here it is. This is my article about religion.

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Views And Explanations


I am an engineer; I am a scientist; I am an atheist. To answer the obligatory two questions you have:

  1. No, I really don’t believe in ‘God’. 1
  2. No, I’m not depressed, insane, gothic, disturbed, or angry.

I said I was an engineer, scientist, and atheist in the same sentence because they go hand-in-hand. They’re psychologically compatible. There’s a reason that the correlation coefficient between religiosity and [intelligence, education, and wealth] is just about -1. You can’t claim to be someone of mathematic and scientific founding and then have a mysterious and “sacred” relationship with your imaginary friend in the sky2. You can’t pick and choose to be intelligent where it’s easy; sorry, that’s not how it works.

If you’re looking for an explanation of why atheism makes sense, look elsewhere. You won’t find it here, because by definition, atheism is the absence of whimsical beliefs. I don’t believe in a supernatural being because I have no reason to do so.

Whenever I meet someone who subscribes to a religion, I have a tendency to ask two questions:

  1. Why do you believe in your religion?
  2. Perhaps more importantly, do you believe in the cookie-monster? If not, why not?

I ask the second question before the subscriber answers the first question to emphasize a rather amusing truth: a logical answer to the second question directly contradicts the line of reasoning of the first.

More specifically, the truth of the matter is that they believe it because they don’t know any better. Or at least they didn’t hundred(s) of years ago. Today, logic isn’t on religion’s side. Religion got traction thousands of years ago because back then, supernatural beings were on the same logical footing as scientific theory. That is to say, neither of them had any credibility.

Today, things are different. Any credited scientist will point toward the Nebular hypothesis for the origins of the solar system, for example, not God. Today, unlike thousands of years ago, supernatural beings are NOT on the same logical footing as science.

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Morals

My biggest issue with the word “atheist” is that to uneducated people, it means “moral-less.” This is because today, despite the scandal, deception, and ignorance realistically associated with religion, it is still societally associated with “being a good person.”

I think the irony of this is that I, as the atheist-author of this blog, have probably scolded you, the reader of this blog, for your morals. Those of you who have been reading my writing for more than six months know that being morally sound is a huge part of my life (it’s part of the whole brutally honest, do-good-work mantra of mine). In fact, I go far, far beyond the realm of morality that religion even attempts to (which is scary, to tell you the truth). While religion’s scope of morality tends to stick with a simple correlation to church attendance, my scope of morality goes as far as to assert that if you haven’t found or are looking for your passion, something you enjoy doing that helps other people, you’re a moral-less prick.

Furthermore, if you’re acting morally just because you think your supernatural pimp of a father (ahem, ‘God’) is going to be pissed when you’re dead, that doesn’t really count anyway.

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Religion and Respect

You can say you believe whatever you want. Go right ahead, I’m not going to stop you, and I’m most certainly not going to ridicule you for doing your own thing. But I’m just letting you know, when you believe that life itself is an elaborate plan by an all-knowing person/god/iguana, I (and I suspect every independent-thinking member of society) think you sound like an imbecile. Religion has been culturally accepted because it was a vital part of the witchhunts of the ancient past. We’ve evolved since then, and our tolerance of what is and isn’t ludicrous should too.

For what it’s worth, I’m not civil to religious-folks because they deserve it. As far as I’m concerned, religion is destructive to the scientific process, an opponent to innovation and societal progress, and inappropriately persecutional to groups of people who don’t deserve it, in a fashion disturbingly reminiscent to that which is associated with the Medieval Period, a time characterized by ignorance and stupidity. Despite the fact that I find religious-people an embarrassment to mankind in this and age of scientific reasoning, where understanding the world around you is literally as simple as “click : type : read”, I’m civil to religious-folks because they’re people.

In movies and TV, people often make remarks about “how depressing it must be to think we’re all here without a purpose.” And that’s part of why religion makes me so sad. It destroys one’s ability to see the world for what it really is. I look around outside — at the trees and animals and the people and the mountains and…the earth — and I’m amazed. This is science. This is the product of billions upon billions of years of evolution, selection, and pure random-ness. Likewise, you foolish TV-character, I simply cannot fathom how depressing it must be to believe that all that exists today is the product of intention.

Life is beautiful without the tinted glasses.

1. I never understood it when people were surprised to hear I don’t believe in ‘God.’ When they don’t, I usually laugh, and say “What? Are you kidding me?” It’s insulting that they’d even consider the notion of me believing in some fairy in the sky.

2. When I get sarcastic, it’s because I think the assertion in question is ridiculous. I think praying to what could, factually speaking, be out of a Harry Potter book, is ridiculous.

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Published:
05.19.08 / 4pm
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